With the Gear S2, Samsung has given consumers quite a bit of choice compared to their previous smartwatches, as the device comes in a handful of different styles and even offers up replaceable straps that the user can swap out at their leisure. The standard Gear S2 Sport comes with more of an active look and features a rubberized sport band to match, but the one issue with the sports band is that for a portion of consumers who owned the watch, the strap was breaking at the connector pins which allow the strap to fasten into the watch casing, preventing users from being able to reattach the original band.
For those who were experiencing this problem, which was far from being every owner of this Gear S2 model, the issue was arising after continued daily use of simply putting on and removing the watch from their wrists, or after users were swapping out the original band for another, The Gear S2 was designed to have easily replaceable bands, so this is something which shouldn’t have been happening. Luckily, it appears that Samsung is now replacing the sport bands for free for consumers who qualify, which should be anyone who had a band break on them resulting from tearing due to removing the band, or from swapping out the bands for alternative options frequently.
The piece of the strap that is breaking is the connector piece with the tiny screws that you can see in the main image above. As described in the internal document below said to be from Samsung, if any consumers are experiencing a broken strap/band due to the listed symptoms, then Samsung will be providing a free replacement of them. It isn’t clear how consumers will be able to get a hold of the free strap, whether they’ll have to submit any forms or if Samsung will contact individuals who purchased the watches by email, nor is there any detail about when Samsung will begin sending these replacement straps out or how long it will take before consumers actually start to receive them. The good news is that Samsung seems to be aware of the issue and is attempting to correct it.